Banque Populaire V

Sunday, 30 January 2011

Off the coast of Brazil on day 7.75!

0600 30 Jan Pos 17S 36 30W

Hi there

Another hot night here off the coast of Brasil. Sailing downwind with the full main and biggest gennaker. There are a few rain clouds around, but nothing like last night at this same time of day, when we were stopped for hours in heavy rain. So we are making relatively steady progress, at around 15 to 23 knots, depending on the wind speed.

As you might have seen though, our progression towards Cape Town is hardly spectacular, and unfortunately we have more time of going slowly and not in the right direction, before we get a low pressure to send us eastwards. So do not expect us to break any records from the equator to Cape of Good Hope. The dream scenario is to be able to sail directly from here as Orange2 and Idec did, when they set their respective fully crewed and solo RTW records. But that happens rarely and the rest of the time, we have to take the long way around the St Helena High, and now we are even going the longer way than most. Such is sailing, and we are just racing as fast as we can to do those extra miles quickly.

Right now, the moon and Venus are rising in the East, its too hot for a Tshirt in the middle of the night, I have just had a bowl of porridge, and I am on watch in 100 minutes. Later today the sun will be directly overhead, as our latitude will be the same as the declination of the sun - so it will be a very hot one!

What is it like on board? To describe it to a non sailor it would be like a mix between driving in a F1 Qualifier each day, together with a 2 hour gym session daily, whilst touring the worlds most remote islands and undertaking a French immersion course all at the same time. Its certainly a special experience and I have been very lucky to be part of the team. Right now off to change to the genoa to sail round another rain cloud, then it will be on watch, so that’s all for now folks, a demain..